First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities – toilet paper.

Explanation: Venezuela has been printing money like mad, resulting in massive price inflation (reported at 29.4% most recently). The government panics and institutes price controls, forcing prices below market levels. Consumer demand soars as people grab what they can while supply dries up. Astonishingly, the AP (as published in The Telegraph) manages to zero in on this explanation:

“State-controlled prices – prices that are set below market-clearing price – always result in shortages. The shortage problem will only get worse, as it did over the years in the Soviet Union,” said Steve Hanke, professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University.

Can you believe that the CDC’s “guidelines” on salt are not just misguided, but may actually cause health problems? Say it ain’t so! A new CDC study says that the 1500 mg-level (whatever that is) long sanctioned by Nanny is not just wrong, but that it may lead to an increased risk of heart attacks and death. This is not news to ATW regulars. (Coming next: saturated fat and cholesterol aren’t bad for you afterall.)

More than an increased risk of heart attacks, a reduced salt intake can lead to many problems. So enjoy glorious salt, just not that rubbish, bleached out stuff. Goodness knows what’s in that, but it includes plenty of chemicals. I recommend a decent sprinkling of Maldon Sea Salt with every dish. You’ve never tasted salt ’till you’ve had some of this.

Much political posturing today at the news that oil firms might have colluded to drive up fuel prices.

The real fuel scandal is that prices are driven up and that we are ripped off every day, because most of the price is the cut the state takes. We can’t do anything about it because they have a gun to our heads.

Liberalism again makes a case for being classified as a mental disorder.

SACRAMENTO (CBS/AP) – Transgender students would have the right to use public school restrooms and participate on sports teams that correspond with their expressed genders under a bill approved Thursday in the California Assembly.

In English, that means if Californian boys want to use the girls’ changing rooms and toilets then they have the right to do so. Citizens are warned that if the randy 14 year old down the road wants to get naked next to your daughter, tough. If you disagree, you’re a bigot.

I say let bigotry reign.

Need I say that parents should do everything possible to keep their children from the nonces, weirdos and perverts who infest government schools?

Dan Hodges blogs in The Telegraph that Cameron is making a right cock up of the EU referendum bill, stating: “But whatever you think of the issue of Europe, is this really the way Britain should be dealing with one of its leading strategic geopolitical partnerships?” He’s right of course. Tim Worstall replies (as I said it’s a very good point, and fundamental, so I’ll paste it below):

Every decision is weighed as to the political benefits that it brings the decision maker. And that’s it: we don’t get carefully considered mulling over what is the right thing to do.

Consider the (possibly apocryphal, but it’s illustrative of the problem all the same) decisions over steel works under Callaghan. Yes, everyone accepted that steel works needed to be very large indeed in order to be efficient enough to survive. Big integrated works. So along went the decision: British Steel would have a girt big integrated works.

But where to put it, Scotland or Wales? For political reasons it was halved in size (and therefore neither half was large enough to be efficient) and one half in each Labour dependency.

As I say, that’s how almost all decisions are taken@ what’s good politics, not what is good by any rational standard.

Whether we should be in the EU or not is something that can and should be debated (as everyone knows, I’m hugely biased on this point). But that’s not what is actually happening, is it? Instead we’ve got the usual mess of short term political manouvering.

Step forward … two African rioters! Yep, it’s our old friend the “right to a family life” yet again.

The Telegraph can reveal for the first time how the two rioters – who were both made an example of by the criminal courts for their roles in the 2011 disorder – have since overturned the Home Office’s attempts to have them sent home.

One was convicted of violent disorder after rampages involving attacks on shops and cars by a gang in two Home Counties towns, while the other was convicted of burglary for his part in the London riots.

Right, so over a year ago the Home Secretary introduced rules“that made it “absolutely clear” that those who have committed a crime, broken immigration rules or cannot support themselves must not be allowed to stay”, but nothing’s changed in reality.

It’s not just the CIA dropping off the cash. Now we find that MI6 is doing it too.

British intelligence is handing “bundles” of cash over to Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai for special peace projects despite warnings that handouts are promoting corruption at the heart of his regime.

Gosh, do you reckon that the Karzai crew might not be accounting for every penny of our cash? How shocking it would be to find out that our cash is being trousered by a bunch of Pashtun gangsters, which is all the ruling class is over there.

Kabul will fall five minutes after we leave. I fully expect Karzai to pop up in Switzerland just in time.

An illegal immigrant has been sent to jail and told he must serve his sentence in Britain after he was caught trying to leave the UK and go home to look after his mother.

Albi Shabanaj was stopped by border guards as he tried to exit the country through the Channel Tunnel on his way back to Albania.

The 24-year-old was found to have fake Greek identification papers which he had bought during time working in the EU before sneaking into the UK.

So he gets in without any ID, but the jig is up when he’s checked on he way out. Now he’s banged up for a year. Government is truly insane. Here’s an idea: maybe these “border” guards should turn around and check the ones they seem to wave through without a glance. Here’s another thought: he’ll never leave. Once he’s out of chokey the parasite lawyers will sign him up for a human rights challenge, and we know how they go.

I’ve always thought that religion and the modern military were a strange couple. Nevertheless, it sounds like the Pentagon is being advised a real anti-Christian headbanger. One consequence: a Pentagon statement that Christian proselytisers “could face court martial for promoting their faith”.

If there’s anything in the report (I’ve not seen it elsewhere), some people are going to go completely mental.

Bloody climax to Turkey prosecutor hostage crisis
bbc.co.uk/news/world-eur…
Turkey, the 99% Muslim country that Cameron wants to see in the EU

THE PRICE OF REWARDING TERRORISM

You do not defeat terrorism by rewarding terrorists, regardless of how many bleeding heart liberals argue otherwise. Want to know where that flawed approach leads to? Read UNIONISM DECAYED 1997-2007 - It's my first book and it explains what happens when you seeek to appease terrorists and call it peace. It's available right now for ATW readers so make sure you get your copy by emailing the editor! This is the book that dissents from the herd mentality that doing wrong can lead to being right. It doesn't and this book spells out WHY.

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